Front Door
by Kimiz
Summary: Four times Shikamaru could predict Temari's mood by the way she closed the front door - and the one time he couldn't. Married ShikaTema fluff


A/N: I've never done the four times/five times trope and I wanted to. Have some married ShikaTema.

Four times Shikamaru could predict Temari's mood by the way she closed the front door – and one time he couldn't predict anything at all.

1.

The door closed so gently he barely heard it. For a second he thought he'd imagined it, but the soft shuffling of feet on the hallway proved him wrong. His heart grew tight. Oh, no. She'd just gone over to the Hokage Tower to pick up some kind of correspondence from Suna, and now she was upset. Was it bad news, he wondered. Something wrong with her brothers or a comrade? God, he hoped nobody had died.

She shuffled into the living room with a small wooden chest under her arm. Her expression was neutral, but the hunched shoulders and dragging feet reflected the sadness she was trying to hide. She sent him an awkward smile of acknowledgement and settled on the floor by the coffee table, placing the chest on the surface with utmost care. He stayed where he was, caught between asking what happened and letting her figure it out herself. In the end he didn't have to pick, she held out her hand towards him beckoning him closer.

Her brothers had sent her some of her stuff that had gotten left behind on the big move. Small, inconsequential things she hadn't missed but belonged to her and they had no use for. So they sat together on the floor going through faded pictures and half broken key chains and a torn piece of painted rice paper that had starred in her first fan.

They only kept the wooden chest, it now featured on the china cabinet among the mismatched baubles they'd gotten for their wedding. And although she said she was fine, he could spot homesickness a mile away.

He held her tighter that night, feeling powerless to comfort her and scared to lose her to that desert again.

2.

The door slammed closed with a loud smack, rattling in its frame for enough time to fill his chest with dread. Temari was home, and she was furious. He could only hope he wasn't on the receiving end of all that anger, because he'd just finished making dinner and if he had to run away the food would grow cold. Microwaved dinner never tasted as good.

Temari crossed the living room like a hurricane, completely ignoring his figure standing by the kitchen door, pulling the tessen from its place on her back and flicking it open. He could swear the mugs in the cupboard shook a bit. She followed on a war path all the way to the porch and on to the garden, crossing the gates on the edge of their property, ignoring the neighbors' distant greetings and marching right down into the forest. He wasn't worried about the forest, per say, she was Nara now, so she was allowed entry, but they hadn't been married all that long, he was afraid she might get lost.

He was also afraid she'd tear down half his family's property in her fury. He took a deep breath, covered the pots and pans with their lids, and slowly started following the trail Temari's angry stomping left behind on the soft grass. He gave her a few minutes head start so she'd hopefully calmed down a bit by the time he met her.

He found her fifteen minutes later, standing in one of the biggest clearings, stripped out of her armor and kimono down to the black vest and shorts she wore underneath. The clothes were tossed to the side along with her tessen. She must have started a solo taijutsu training session, because her skin already had a slight sheen of sweat. She had just started to put her fingers into the seal for the summoning jutsu when he decided to stop her. That could get messy.

And his mother would nag him.

"Hey," he said placatingly.

The look she sent him was one part shinigami, two parts the devil himself.

He gulped, and it was all he could do to stand there and keep himself from flinching away. She gave him one long stare, enough to make sweat start dampening his collar, and then wordlessly settled into a fighting stance. He sighed, begrudgingly taking off his jounin vest and following her lead.

Some wives liked to scream off their bad days in the office, some liked a good book and red wine. His liked to spar.

The things he did for love.

3.

The sound of the key turning in the lock, followed by several attempts to turn the door handle, and a constant stream of curses arose him from the slumber he'd slipped into halfway past midnight. He startled upright, blinking against the sudden yellowish light of the hallway. The wobbly heels against the wooden floor clued him in to his wife's most probable inebriated state. He groaned.

Sure enough, she didn't so much walk as kicked her legs forward with each unsteady step, and dropped to the nearest armchair with the grace of a teenage boy. With one upwards kick, she sent one of the ridiculously high heels in the air, and then repeated the gesture with the other. He rather thought that was an unnecessary danger, for all he knew those death traps could have landed on his head. He waited for her to notice his presence, but Temari seemed too wasted to realize he was still in the room.

"Have fun?" he asked, snorting at her figure sprawled out on the armchair like a star fish.

She didn't even startle. "I din' really wanna know what kinda kinky shit Ino and Sai get up to 'hind that ugly purple door of theirs."

He raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"

She nodded to herself, shuddering at the memory. "If I don' ever see 'nother brush again it'll be too soon. But hey, t'was Tequila night!"

He grew a bit concerned. Temari was good with alcohol, her tolerance was better than most everyone he knew, certainly better than his, possibly better than Kiba and Naruto (together), if she got home tripping on her feet, the rest of the party was comatose. She opened one eye to spy on him and, seeing his disturbed expression, sent him a slightly more lopsided version of her usual maniac grin.

"Chill, hubbie. Sakura was designated driver. 'M sure everyone's still alive." She stopped and stared into nothing for a while. "Probably."

Troublesome.

4.

The door swung open with gusto, slammed back against the wall and, like a revolving door, swung back closed – gentler this time, lock clicking in place. He smiled to himself, something good had happened today.

He looked up from his latest mission report to see her saunter into the living room, a wide grin on her lips and a bounce in her step. She had that whole air of self-satisfaction, the arrogance she always sported after a job well done. He didn't know who was the sorry bastard who had the misfortune to go up against her in the Council meetings today, but she'd massacred them. Temari had a ruthlessness inside her that could not be tamped down by peaceful times, that raw power and feral instincts that translated to the way she did politics. Temari didn't negotiate, she tore down opposing politicians the way he'd seen her tear the enemy army in half during the war, and few things in life brought her as much satisfaction as victory.

He put away the papers in his hand and watched her march towards him. Temari was always a force to be reckoned with. When angry she walked with a storm in her heels – when pleased, she dragged in the sun. That harsh, scorching, unforgiving desert sun that chased away every shadow in the corners of his soul.

She was never more beautiful than when she was happy.

She unlatched the tessen and dropped it on the couch with the same casualness she dropped herself on his lap.

"Hey," she mumbled against his lips, nuzzling his nose with hers.

His mouth curled up of its own account, barely keeping hold of the idiotic grin it seemed to turn into in her presence. "Hello," he greeted back, arms wrapping around her to pull her closer.

She hummed in satisfaction, closing her teeth around his lower lip and tugging playfully, hands unceremoniously slipping inside his shirt and dragging it all the way up and over his head.

"Nice day in the office?" he asked, knowing full well the answer.

"I destroyed them," she beamed.

He grinned right back.

And 1.

The door swung shut with a discreet thud, none of the slamming and rattling of Temari coming home in a rampage, or the loud smack against the wall typical of her smug joy, and the steps echoing in the hallway didn't shuffle, or drag. Before he could get up to meet her, she called out his name, asking about his location in the house. He called back from the porch, setting aside the ancient medical treaty he'd been revising on Lady Tsunade's request.

He had no idea what to expect when she met him outside.

"Welcome back," he greeted uncertainly.

She seemed a bit confused too, greeted him back quietly and sat beside him. He waited for her to start a conversation, but she was lost in thoughts. It made him anxious. He was usually very good at guessing her moods, knowing what she was thinking, he didn't like being in the dark like this. He could see something was up, but she wasn't sharing.

"Did something happen?" he prompted.

"I went to see Ino at the hospital today," she said.

He was immediately gripped with an overwhelming mix of emotions he couldn't describe. She hadn't been feeling very well the past few weeks, had faced dizzying spells and complained about being more tired than usual, had been sleeping more too. Yesterday the nausea started and… well. He was a smart man. Putting it all together… He'd been hopeful.

"And what did she say?"

She turned to look at him, and he spotted the beginning of a smile make its way to her lips. "How serious are you about the whole Ino-Shika-Chou thing?"

He was not expecting that. "Pretty serious, why?"

"And Ino and Chouji?"

"Also very serious. Temari, what's going on?"

"Well…" she bit her lip, but it was more amusement then nervous. "Then you should probably tell them to get a move on, cause this one's due in December."


End file.
